might
recognize 'em. They didn't see our faces that night, so they don't know
how we look; but they tried to make me talk enough so that they might
recognize my voice. Guess that lookout's not so deaf as he pretended to
be! Once Brittler felt sure who it was, he gave orders to the wheelman
to run over us. He'd have done it, too, if I hadn't seen the schooner's
bow start swinging the wrong way."

The _Cassie J._ slowly outdistanced the sloop. By the time the stranger
was a quarter-mile off six or seven men had appeared on her deck.

"Feel it's safe for 'em to come up now," commented Spurling. "Wonder
what they're cruising along the coast for, anyway! Something easier and
more crooked than fishing, I guess! Here's hoping they steer clear of
Tarpaulin!"

At dinner that noon the boys related their narrow escape to the others,
and all agreed it would be well to keep a sharp lookout for Brittler and
his gang.

"They've got a grudge against us, fast enough," said Lane. "They intend
to even matters up if they can find the chance."

That afternoon Percy again wielded the splitting-knife.

"You'll soon get the knack of it," approved Jim. "Don't pitch in too
hard at first. Later on, after you grow used to it, you can work twice
as fast, and it won't tire you half so much."

In dressing a fifteen-pound hake Percy came upon a mass of feathers in
the stomach. He was about to throw them aside, when a silvery glint
caught his eye.

"What's that?" he exclaimed.

Rinsing the mass in a pail of water, he picked from it the foot of a
bird; round its slender ankle was a little band of German silver or
aluminum, bearing the inscription, "U43719." He held it up for the
others to inspect.

"That's the foot of a carrier-pigeon!" said Throppy. "I know a fellow at
home who makes a specialty of raising 'em. The bird that owned this foot
was taking a message to somebody. Perhaps he was shot; or he may have
become tired, lost his way, and fallen into the water, and the hake got
him."

They looked at the little foot with the white-metal band.

"My uncle Tom was fishing once in eighty fathoms off Monhegan," Spurling
remarked, "and pulled up an odd-patterned, blue cup of old English ware.
The hook caught in a 'blister,' a brown, soft, toadstool thing, that had
grown over the cup. He's got it on his parlor mantel now."

"I'll keep this foot as a souvenir," said Percy.

They finished the hake shortly after four. Percy shed his oil-cloth